Bathing and Buddhism

In a disaster we had better face the disaster. It is the words of Buddhism, but actually, my mind is outside of the words. On holidays my wife and I have stayed home as much as possible since the middle of February. It is due to coronavirus. Contrarily, to restrict our activities strongly leads to our mind being steeped in somber and such somber mind decreases the energy of immunity. And our spending during a short outing may help the economy even though it might be a small step. Besides, the war against COVID-19 is continuing and the end cannot be seen. In the end, we determined we had better shift our last stage of restraining during holidays to the next stage of striking a balance between not to be infected and to make adequate activity to keep the force of our immunity. So then, we decided to go to the Arima-spring-town, Kobe.

The Origin of Arima-Springs

Firstly, we visited Arima Hot-Spring Shrine. The shrine is on the middle of a hill and the long stone-stairs were in front of us. After walking up for a few minutes we arrived at the house of the shrine. The shrine was old and the atmosphere was warm and calm.


According to the chronicle of the shrine, the first finders of the hot-springs were two gods, Onamuchi-no-mikoto and Sukunahikona-no-mikoto and it is noted in the oldest Japanese chronicle, Nihon-shoki. Moreover, the thirty-fourth Emperor in the early seventh century, Jomei, stayed at Arima for a long time.


The benefit of bathing

There is a museum of the hot-springs here nearby the shrine, and a small steam room is exhibited. It is the remake of the one that the greatest lord, Hideyoshi Toyotomi, ordered. Why was the steam room at the famous hot-spring-town?


Nowadays, bathing is to plunge our bodies into hot water of 40-43 degrees. However, in old times before the middle of the Edo period, the eighteen century, bathing was to enter a steam room. Then the small steam room was made at the town which had a lot of hot-springs.


The benefit of bathing was for our health. Then I will write about spreading the health of bathing.





For saving people

Nearby the museum a statue of a Buddhist stands. He is Gyoki, who was the most popular priest of the eighth century. And it is said that he found the springs at Arima. He was respected by people as the great priest who saved people with a lot of methods in many corners of Japan. He often built a bridge across a river, often made a water well and often saved lives. However, there is no official proof and all his doings were folklores, but what I want to say is not whether his finding of the hot-springs is a fact or not, but the desire for health made people transmit the folklore. I am sure that the people thought bathing led to the saving of lives in a broad sense.

Historically, many temples in Buddhism gave free bathing to people since the eighth century. It is to keep healthy and to cure diseases. Of course, those were steam rooms. And a statue of Yakushi-nyorai was placed in every bathing room. Yakushi-nyorai (the first picture) is the Buddha who lives in the cleaned lapis lazuli land in the east. It is said that all the land is adorned by seven treasures, lapis lazuli, gold, silver, crystal, agate, giant clam and coral. And the greatest characteristic of Yakushi-nyorai is that he has a small pot of medicine in his left hand. Ultimately, Yakushi-nyorai is for people to live in good health and it is the largest benefit for people. It is similar to bathing, so Yakushi-nyorai was placed in a steam room in a temple.


Unfortunately, many urban paid bathing houses were built in many cities since the middle of the Edo period, so bathing in temples went out of use, and nowadays, there is no bathing rooms in temples. So nowadays, we can’t see a bathing room in a temple.


Japan doesn’t have Lapis lazuli in the ground. Then it might have been that there were no expressions with a world of the cleaned lapis lazuli land. I want to see a bathing room with Yakushi-nyorai in a temple. Furthermore, if possible, I want to see a magnificent steam room adorned by lapis lazuli. I am sure one set with bathing, Yakushi-nyorai and a blue magnificent room will strengthen our health. Probably, it will enhance our power of immunity against coronavirus, COVID-19

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